Former New York Gov. David Patterson (D) said the Democratic party needs to do a better job “listening” to voters during a Saturday appearance onJohn Catsimatidis’s radio show, “Cats Roundtable” on WABC 770 AM.
“We’ve got to kind of tear up all the information that we have now and start going out and start listening to the people. Hearing what they’re saying, as opposed to lecturing, which I think the party has gotten into too often,” Patterson said.
He slammed Vice President Harris’s address at Howard University, describing it as a “graduation speech” rather than a concession.
“When she gave her concession speech, which I would’ve given the same night because all of your people followed you and just literally gave you all their energy to you. She gave it the next afternoon,” said Patterson, a former New York Democratic party chair.
“But it didn’t even sound like a concession speech. It sounded like a graduation speech at Howard [University] … Naming topics, like ‘we want to solve the problems of tomorrow.’ I heard her say that.”
”I think she’s a very intelligent woman. But there’s such a communication problem that when she tries to address these issues, it just doesn’t register with the public,” he added.
Lawmakers like California Gov. Gavin Newsom are preparing for President-elect Trump’s second term with new statewide policies and protections.
Trump condemned Newsom’s special legislative meeting earlier this week and has leaned on fellow Republicans such as Illinois’ former governor JP Pritzker.
Patterson said the commander-in-chief will enter new realms of power for the nation over the next four years. He encouraged Trump to govern “judiciously.”
“The president has an immense opportunity because he has the House and Senate presumably behind him, and the Supreme Court. I don’t think any president has ever had that kind of power. I hope he uses it judiciously,” Patterson said. “If he does, we might just look up in a couple of years and say, ‘You know, things really aren’t that bad.’”
China and Indonesia have agreed to strengthen cooperation in key sectors, including lithium, new energy vehicles, green energy and tourism, according to a joint statement released on Saturday.
The statement followed a meeting between Chinese President Xi Jinping and Indonesian President Prabowo Subianto, who is visiting China through November 10, the first country he has visited since taking office last month.
Prabowo, who won Indonesia's presidential election in February, also chose China as the first country to visit as president elect, underscoring Jakarta's commitment to strengthening its strategic ties with Beijing.
"China and Indonesia will work together to cultivate new drivers of global development, exploring cooperation potential in areas such as new energy vehicles, lithium batteries, and photovoltaics, while seizing opportunities in digital economy and green development sectors," the statement said.
Both nations also plan to collaborate more closely in the mining sector, leveraging their respective resource endowments and production capacities.
In efforts to revive and surpass pre-pandemic tourism levels, the two countries will introduce new visa measures, including multi-entry long-term visas, and encourage more direct flights and destinations based on demand.
During Prabowo's visit, both sides signed several cooperation deals, including in housing and the export of fresh coconuts from Indonesia to China.
Israel's Defence Ministry has begun coordinating joint preparations with the German Federal Ministry of Defence for the initial deployment of Israel's Arrow-3 missile interception system on German soil in 2025, it said on Sunday.
The ministry said it has held meetings at Israel Aerospace Industries (IAI) along with Israel defence firm Elbit Systems and MBDA Deutschland GmbH.
The Arrow system, which includes the Arrow-2 and Arrow-3 interceptors, was developed in cooperation between Israel and the United States to counter long-range ballistic missile threats, with IAI as the prime contractor.
Israel, with U.S. approval, agreed last year to sell the Arrow-3 system to Germany in a $3.5 billion deal, its biggest defence sale to date.
Germany and its neighbours in Europe are boosting defence spending following Russia's war in Ukraine.
The U.S. is a partner in the Arrow project and Boeing is involved in its production.
Arrow is the upper layer of Israel's missile defences, together with the Iron Dome, which takes out short-range threats such as mortars and rockets, and mid-range defender David's Sling.
Arrow-2 intercepts ballistic missiles at long range, while the newer Arrow-3 specialises in knocking out missiles before they re-enter the Earth's atmosphere.
Using cutting-edge technologies, the system proved effective against Iranian missile attacks in April and October.
After the Arrow systems helped to thwart Iran's massive missile and drone attack in April, a number of countries are interested in purchasing the technology, according to IAI.
The National Highway Traffic Safety Administration raised concerns about Tesla social media posts that suggested its Full Self-Driving software can be used as a robotaxi and does not need driver attention.
NHTSA in October opened an investigation into 2.4 million Tesla vehicles with FSD software after four reported collisions, including a 2023 fatal crash, during conditions including sun glare, fog, and airborne dust.
In a May 14 email made public on Friday, NHTSA told Tesla its social media postings could encourage people to see FSD as a robotaxi "rather than a partial automation/driver assist system that requires persistent attention and intermittent intervention by the driver."
NHTSA cited Tesla postings on X including reposting the story of an individual who opted to use FSD to drive him 13 miles (21 km) from his home to the emergency room during a heart attack, along with another depicting a 50-minute drive home using FSD from a sporting event.
"We believe that Tesla’s postings conflict with
its stated messaging that the driver is to maintain continued control over the dynamic driving task," NHTSA wrote, asking Tesla to revisit its communications.
Tesla, which met with the agency in May about the social media posts, told NHTSA that its owner's manual and in other places tells drivers that the vehicle is not autonomous and that they must remain vigilant.
Tesla did not immediately comment on Friday. Elon Musk is CEO of Tesla and owns X, the social media site formerly known as Twitter.
NHTSA on Friday released a letter dated Monday to Tesla seeking answers to questions in its investigation by Dec. 18, including the driver assistance system's "potential failure to perform, including detecting and responding appropriately in specific situations where there is reduced roadway visibility that may limit FSD’s ability to safely operate."
NHTSA added that its "investigation will consider the adequacy of feedback or information the system provides to drivers to enable them to make a decision in real time when the capability of the system has been exceeded."
A 71-year-old woman who exited a vehicle following a rear-end collision with two other vehicles was killed in Rimrock, Arizona when she was struck by a Tesla in FSD mode with a driver battling sun glare who was not charged.
In December 2023, Tesla agreed to recall over 2 million vehicles in the U.S. to install new safeguards in its Autopilot advanced driver-assistance system under pressure from NHTSA, which is still considering the adequacy of the safeguards.
During his campaign for re-election, Donald Trump vowed to purge the military of so-called "woke" generals. Now that he is president-elect, the question in the halls of the Pentagon is whether he would go much further.
Trump is expected to have a far darker view of his military leaders in his second term, after facing Pentagon resistance over everything from his skepticism toward NATO to his readiness to deploy troops to quell protests on U.S. streets.
Trump's former U.S. generals and defense secretaries are among his fiercest critics, some branding him a fascist and declaring him unfit for office. Angered, Trump has suggested that his former chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Mark Milley, could be executed for treason.
Current and former U.S. officials say Trump will prioritize loyalty in his second term and root out military officers and career civil servants he perceives to be disloyal.
"He will destroy the Department of Defense, frankly. He will go in and he will dismiss generals who stand up for the Constitution," said Jack Reed, the Democrat who leads the Senate Armed Services Committee.
Culture war issues could be one trigger for firings. Trump was asked by Fox News in June whether he would fire generals described as "woke," a term for those focused on racial and social justice but which is used by conservatives to disparage progressive policies.
"I would fire them. You can't have (a) woke military," Trump said.
Some current and former officials fear Trump's team could target the current chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Air Force General C.Q. Brown, a widely respected former fighter pilot and military commander who steers clear of politics.
The four-star general, who is Black, issued a video message about discrimination in the ranks in the days after the May 2020 murder of George Floyd by a police officer in Minneapolis, and has been a voice in favor of diversity in the U.S. military.
Asked for comment, Brown's spokesperson, Navy Captain Jereal Dorsey, said: "The chairman along with all of the service members in our armed forces remain focused on the security and defense of our nation and will continue to do so, ensuring a smooth transition to the new administration of President-elect Trump."
Trump's vice president-elect, J.D. Vance, voted as a senator last year against confirming Brown to become the top U.S. military officer, and has been a critic of perceived resistance to Trump's orders within the Pentagon.
"If the people in your own government aren't obeying you, you have got to get rid of them and replace them with people who are responsive to what the president's trying to do," Vance said in an interview with Tucker Carlson before the election.
During the campaign, Trump pledged to restore the name of a Confederate general to a major U.S. military base, reversing a change made after Floyd's killing.
Trump's strongest anti-woke messaging during the campaign took aim at transgender troops. Trump has previously banned transgender service members and posted a campaign ad on X portraying them as weak, with the vow that "WE WILL NOT HAVE A WOKE MILITARY!"
The Trump transition team did not immediately respond to a request for comment.
'LAWFUL ORDERS'
Trump has suggested the U.S. military could play an important role in many of his policy priorities, from tapping National Guard and possibly active-duty troops to help carry out a mass deportation of undocumented immigrants to even deploying them to address domestic unrest.
Such proposals alarm military experts, who say deploying the military on American streets could not only violate laws but turn much of the American population against the still widely respected U.S. armed forces.
In a message to the forces after Trump's election win, outgoing Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin acknowledged the results of the election and stressed the military would obey "all lawful orders" from its civilian leaders.
But some experts caution that Trump has wide latitude to interpret the law and U.S. troops cannot disobey legal orders they consider to be morally wrong.
"There is a widespread public misperception that the military can choose not to obey immoral orders. And that's actually not true," said Kori Schake of the conservative American Enterprise Institute.
Schake warned that a second Trump term could see high-level firings as he pushes ahead with controversial policies.
"I think there will be an enormous chaos premium in a second Trump term, both because of the policies he will attempt to enact and the people he will put in place to enact them in terms of appointments," she said.
One U.S. military official downplayed such concerns, saying on condition of anonymity that creating chaos within the U.S. military's chain of command would create political backlash and be unnecessary for Trump to accomplish his goals.
"What these guys will find out is that military officers are generally focused on warfighting and not politics," the military official said.
"I feel they'll be satisfied of that - or at least they should be."
HOLLOW OUT CIVILIAN RANKS? Career civil servants at the Pentagon could be subjected to loyalty tests, current and former officials say. Trump allies have publicly embraced using executive orders and rule changes to replace thousands of civil servants with conservative allies.
A senior U.S. defense official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told Reuters there was increasing concern within the Pentagon that Trump would purge career civilian employees from the department.
"I'm deeply concerned about their ranks," the official said, adding that several colleagues had expressed concern about the future of their jobs.
Career civil servants are among the nearly 950,000 non-uniformed employees who work within the U.S. military and in many cases have years of specialized experience.
Trump vowed during the campaign to give himself the power to gut the federal workforce across the government.
During his first administration, some of Trump's controversial suggestions to advisers, such as potentially firing missiles into Mexico to destroy drug labs, never became policy in part because of pushback from officials at the Pentagon.
"This will be 2016 on steroids and the fear is that he will hollow out the ranks and expertise in a way that will do irreparable damage to the Pentagon," the official said.
EJ Snyder knows a thing or two about survival. After 25 years in the U.S. Army, he emerged as the extreme survivalist “Skullcrusher” on television shows like “Naked and Afraid,” “Dual Survival,” and “First Man Out.”
“It’s been God’s path for me. I love getting the word out about these things,” he said. “It’s a matter of confidence if you do plan for these things. It makes the situation a little bit easier.”
At the time of this interview, Snyder was putting his survivalist skills into practice in North Carolina, aiding other veterans with Hurricane Helene relief efforts. We tapped the former Army Ranger for advice on how best to prepare for any kind of emergency with survival skills.
The Epoch Times: There are a lot of different approaches to prepping, and different personalities teaching about the subject. What’s different about you and your approach?
EJ Snyder: I try to approach teaching survival skills with skull-crushing common sense based on reality. I want you to be able to do the tasks when it matters most. I teach super simply ... helping the everyday Joe or Joan to handle bad days and be sufficient.
The Epoch Times: How did you get interested in preparing for emergencies?
Mr. Snyder: When I was a little boy at 8 years old, I remember it was wintertime in the late afternoon, and we had been sitting in a tree stand. It was getting very cold. I followed the steps back a couple of miles to camp and it started snowing. I got distracted and I remember trying to follow my tracks, and I couldn’t see them because the snow covered them up.
I got lost and panicked. I saw a rock and thought I should get on the rock and call my dad. I was in the dark for an hour. My uncles and dad were looking for me and finally found me. My dad then taught me about a compass and it taught me to be prepared for any situation.
Later, I was a Ranger instructor and went to the U.S. Army SERE School. I became the primary survival and tracking expert for Ranger students. But Y2K was the real catalyst. I wanted myself and my family to be ready. So I started with a list of what I needed, like bug-out bags and stored foods such as rice. We had enough spaghetti for two years. If something would have happened, we would have been prepared. Several months later, we were able to help people survive a Category 3 storm.
That is how it all got started. It is critically important because we’ve got to save lives here. I’m passionate about survival to help people help themselves.
The Epoch Times: Can you tell us about emergencies that you may have been in, and how that went for you and yours?
Mr. Snyder: I remember there was a time when I was driving in the winter in upstate New York. I was big about preparedness by this point and made sure I had a winter survival kit in the vehicle: blankets, meals, extra coats, and dry clothing with gloves and hats. We were driving in a blizzard and the minivan slid off the road.
We were way out, like three miles to the main road. Cell service was down. At that time, cell towers were not that great, but I was hoping my text would have gone through to a neighbor. My son, who was 3, was nervous and scared.
We were there three hours and low on gas, so I wrapped us up in blankets and shut down the vehicle. I started a survival candle in a coffee can because it raises the temperature in the car by 5 to 10 degrees Fahrenheit. We sat there while I was keeping him calm, and we ate a little food and drank some water.
I decided to take action. I pulled out the sled and put my son in it, then got my winter boots and snow shoes on, and when we were bundled up we went hiking out three miles. Finally we got to an intersection and made it to a farmhouse, where I was able to make a landline phone call with my location. My neighbor with a four-wheel drive and skid plow picked us up and got us home. We had to wait a couple of days.
That’s being prepared and thinking through a plan. You want to be forward-thinking about having the basics and think about what might be missing. Murphy is always waiting to ambush you when things go wrong.
The Epoch Times: What kind of emergencies do you foresee the need to be prepared for, given the current state of the world?
Mr. Snyder: It’s pretty cut and dry because we’ve seen a lot. Man-made disasters, natural disasters, war, pandemic, and civil unrest are the main situations. Or we have to deal with active shooters who want to hurt people.
When you have these situations, you plan for them and always rehearse. Check your survival kit.
How about a fire in your home? Evacuate and make sure you know how to get out. If you’re bugging in, have you rehearsed your escape route? In emergency planning, you have to have a PACE plan, which stands for primary, alternative, contingency, and emergency. This is your action plan. To sum it up, survival is simple. Keep your planning simple.
The Epoch Times: How long should people be prepared to ride out an emergency?
Mr. Snyder: Seventy-two hours isn’t going to do squat! You should stock three meals per day for each person in your family, plus snacks and one gallon of water per day per person—enough to last for 90 days. Then, add enough for another person who might knock at your door. You can help your neighbor out. If you have to stretch it out, do one meal a day.
With 90 days down, start looking at six months for however many are in your family, rationing what you have plus supplies from fishing or hunting. You can stretch it out over a year.
Have heirloom seeds and freeze them up just in case the grocery stores aren’t available. When you freeze the seeds, you extend their shelf life. They will be ready when you need them.
Don’t be scared, be prepared. If you get some preparedness skills, it builds your confidence up. If you have prepared in an emergency situation, that’s power and confidence.
Fear cripples people. Not doing anything in an emergency situation can cost you your life. One of the big things is to remain calm. Then assess the situation, take care of the wounded and sick, and after that make a plan. What resources do you have? What equipment is available? Who is around you and what skills do they have? Make a detailed plan and share the details with everyone.
Rehearse and then execute. Have your situational awareness up. Adapt the plan as you go. Improvise if you have to and then, as they say, overcome. You’re a winner.
Don’t forget health and fitness. You should have on hand extra prescription glasses, prescription medications to last six months to a year, over-the-counter medicines, and first aid kits to handle cuts and bruises. Learn basic first aid. Learn how to suture.
Food and Water
The Epoch Times: What water storage and purification equipment do you have and recommend?
Mr. Snyder: I recommend getting five-gallon water jugs from a home improvement store. You can store water in an easy way. If you can’t afford it, buy water in jugs and refill them. Get 55-gallon drums to collect rainwater from your roof (to water plants or to wash).
Lastly, consider one of several types of water filtration systems, including the Lifesaver Water Purifier or the Grayl GeoPress, a bottle that gives you crystal clear drinking water. I can boil water right in it, as there’s a nesting cup and an actual stove sleeve. Sawyer is a good brand to consider, too.
Most of my systems are simplistic. Unless you have a backup generator, once you lose power, you won’t be able to power those sources. What can I have on hand that I don’t need electricity to generate? In emergency situations, have tradable items that you use, like gold and silver, because certain items will be important. It’s possible to be set back by 200 years.
The Epoch Times: Please walk us through the essential foods in your own long-term storage pantry. What makes each item a good choice?
Mr. Snyder: A good choice would be survival foods with nutritional value from My Patriot Supply. Store up on them, as they are packed with a lot of calories. MREs [meals, ready-to-eat] are good too because they have a long shelf life. After that, choose canned goods and dry goods like rice, black beans, pasta, dehydrated fruits, fruit snacks, and jerky.
Supplement by fishing and hunting and trapping. You don’t have to complicate it. Use snares. Learn how to process fish and game. Eventually, supplies will run out and you will need to go out and get your own food.
The Epoch Times: What essential emergency food storage and cooking equipment do you have and recommend?
Mr. Snyder: Always have multiple ways to cook. I recommend a BBQ grill. I do keep propane in a storage cage for my Blackstone grill. Another option is the RockPot, a pot that doesn’t require flame. It is amazing. You can throw it on your stone or in the fire to heat it up; it cooks your food in the case.
I have a ton of cast-iron frying pans and pots from The Lodge. Aluminum-type pans are good for backpacks. I have a fire pit with a cooking area with bricks for open fire. Backpack stoves are good for one person. I’ve had a Coleman 2 Burner Stove in my camping gear forever.
Trump’s reported plan for a Western/NATO peacekeeping mission in Ukraine places Russia in the dilemma of either preempting this with another large-scale nationwide offensive, targeting those forces after they enter at the risk of sparking World War III, or tacitly accepting this endgame.
The Wall Street Journal’s report that Trump’s peace plan for Ukraine envisages the creation of an 800-mile demilitarized zone that would be patrolled by Europeans adds a lot of urgency to Russia’s nearly 1000-day-long struggle to achieve its maximum goals in this conflict. The potential entrance of conventional Western/NATO forces into Ukraine as peacekeepers places Russia in the dilemma of accepting yet another “red line” being crossed or risking World War III by targeting them.
To refresh everyone’s memory since it’s been so long since the special operation started, Russia officially aims to: 1) demilitarize Ukraine; 2) denazify it; and 3) restore its constitutional neutrality, among other supplementary and informal goals. September 2022’s referenda then added the official goal of removing Ukrainian forces from the entirety of the four regions that Russia now claims as its own, including the areas of Kherson and Zaporozhye on the other side of the Dnieper, which will be challenge.
At the same time, Putin has repeatedly refused to reciprocally escalate in response to egregious Ukrainian provocations like its bombing of the Kremlin, early warning systems, strategic airfields, oil refineries, and residential buildings, et al, all due to him not wanting the conflict to spiral out of control. For as responsible of an approach as this is, the drawback is that it created the perception that he might accept the crossing of even more “red lines”, including conventional Western/NATO forces in Ukraine.
Putin’s aversion to escalation might therefore be exploited by Trump, who was reportedly handed a plan in June advising him to give Ukraine whatever it wants if Russia refuses whatever peace deal he proposes, ergo the high likelihood of a conventional Western/NATO intervention to decisively freeze the conflict. Trump’s track record of “escalating to de-escalate” with North Korea and Iran suggests that he’d also go through with this plan against Russia, hence why it should take this scenario seriously.
Provided that Putin lacks the political will to risk an unprecedented escalation by targeting those conventional Western/NATO forces, and his behavior thus far in response to other provocations suggests that this is indeed the case, then he’ll have to race against the clock to achieve his maximum goals. It’ll still take some time for the US to get key stakeholders like Poland on board, where 69% of the public is against dispatching troops to Ukraine in any capacity, so this likely won’t happen by mid-January.
In any case, Russia no longer has a hypothetically indefinite amount of time like before to: 1) demilitarize Ukraine; 2) denazify it; 3) restore its constitutional neutrality; and 4) remove Ukrainian forces from the entirety of the four regions that Russia now claims as its own, including those areas across the Dnieper. Even though the military-strategic dynamics of the conflict favor it, and capturing Pokrovsk could lead to huge gains in Donetsk, it’ll be very difficult to achieve all these goals by the time an intervention occurs.
To explain in the order that they were mentioned, Ukraine was initially supposed to be demilitarized upon the swift success of the special operation in its early phase, but the UK and Poland (whose role most observers aren’t aware of) convinced Zelensky to rubbish spring 2022’s draft peace treaty. That document would have greatly slashed its military capabilities, but it’s no longer realistic to imagine that he’d agree to this, especially after being given tens of billions of dollars’ worth of NATO arms.
NATO is also unlikely to agree to ask for them back due to the perception (regardless of its veracity) that Ukraine must be able to “deter” Russia from supposedly recommencing the conflict after it finally ends. The Taliban’s swift capture of Afghanistan after Biden’s bungled withdrawal from there was viciously lambasted by Trump, who’d go down in history as an even bigger loser if he agreed to “demilitarize” Ukraine and was then played for a fool by Putin if Russia steamrolls through it sometime later.
The only viable way in which Russia could implement Ukraine’s demilitarization in today’s context is to control as much of its territory as possible in order to ensure that no threatening weapons are deployed there. The problem though is that Russia is unlikely to obtain military control over all of Ukraine, or even just significant parts of its territory east of the Dnieper in proximity to the internationally recognized border across which Kiev’s shells still regularly fly, by the time of a Western/NATO intervention.
One of the reasons why the special operation’s opening phase didn’t result in ending the conflict on Russia’s terms is because the West informed Zelensky about how overextended its military logistics had become and thus encouraged him to exploit that to push it back like he ultimately did.Given how cautious of a leader Putin is, he’s unlikely to act out of character once more by ordering a repeat of this same risky strategy even if the frontlines collapse and Russia is able to roll into other regions.
Another unforeseen challenge that Russia experienced during the special operation’s opening phase was actually holding the broad swaths territory that it nominally controlled. Ukraine’s hidden Javelin and Stinger stockpiles inflicted enough losses behind Russia’s lines to engender the large-scale pullback that coincided with the failure of spring 2022’s peace talks. There’s also the obvious difficulty of swiftly capturing large cities like Kharkov, Sumy, and Zaporozhye, which hasn’t yet happened.
Moving along to Russia’s second maximum goal of denazifying Ukraine after explaining how tough it’ll be to achieve the first one of militarizing it, this too can’t succeed without a political agreement that’s no longer realistic in today’s context after such a chance slipped away in spring 2022. What Russia has in mind is Ukraine promulgating legislation that aligns with these goals, such as banning the glorification of World War II-era fascists and rescinding restrictions on ethnic Russians’ rights.
Zelensky has no reason to go along with this anymore like he flirted with doing in early 2022 and Trump’s team doesn’t seem to care all that much about this issue anyhow. It’s therefore unclear how Russia can achieve this before a Western/NATO intervention except in the unlikely scenario of a Russian-friendly Color Revolution and/or military coup, neither of which the US would accept, and both of which would probably thus prompt the aforesaid intervention out of desperation to salvage “Project Ukraine”.
The third maximum goal of restoring Ukraine’s constitutional neutrality is comparatively more likely but nevertheless moot at this point given that the raft of security guarantees that it already clinched with NATO states since the start of this year de facto amount to continued Article 5 support. Contrary to popular perceptions, this clause doesn’t obligate the dispatch of troops, but only for each country to do whatever it deems fit to help allies under attack. Their existing military aid to Ukraine aligns with this.
Coercing Ukraine to rescind 2019’s constitutional amendment making NATO membership a strategic objective would therefore be a superficial concession to Russia on the US’ part to make Trump’s peace plan a little less bitter for Putin to swallow. As with the previous two maximum goals, Zelensky has no reason to comply with Putin’s demands in this regard since the latter’s forces aren’t in a position to impose this upon him, thus meaning that it can only realistically be done if Trump orders him to.
As the reader probably already picked up on, the common theme is that Russia’s inability to militarily coerce Zelensky into complying with its maximum goals greatly reduces the possibility that they’ll be achieved, which also holds true for the final one of obtaining control over all its new regions’ land. It’s unimaginable that Zelensky will voluntarily cede Zaporozhye with its over 700,000 population, for example, or that Trump will accept the Western opprobrium that would follow coercing him to do so.
The same goes for letting Russia cross the Dnieper to obtain control over that region’s and Kherson’s areas on the other side, thus creating the opportunity for it to build up its forces there in the future for a lightning strike across Ukraine’s western plains in the event that the conflict ever rekindles after it ends. There’s no way that Trump would ever give Putin such an invaluable military-strategic gift so Russia’s supporters shouldn’t deceive themselves by getting their hopes up thinking that this will happen.
The only way in which Russia can achieve its maximum goals before the entrance of Western/NATO troops into Ukraine as peacekeepers is through military means, which would require another large-scale multi-pronged offensive of the sort that characterized the special operation’s early days. Even then, however, the high risk of once again overextending its military logistics, being ambushed by Stingers/Javelins, and thus risking reputational costs and even on-the-ground losses, will remain.
As such, there are really only three options left for Russia:
1) escalate now before Western/NATO troops enter Ukraine and either coerce Zelensky into agreeing to these demands or capture and hold enough land in order to demilitarize as much of the country as possible;
2) escalate after they enter at the risk of sparking a Cuban-like brinksmanship crisis that could spiral into World War III; or
3) accept the fait accompli of freezing the conflict along the Line of Contact and begin preparing the public accordingly.
It's unclear which option Putin will choose since he hasn’t yet signaled a preference for any of them. Nevertheless, it’s timely to quote 19th-century Russian Foreign Minister Alexander Gorchakov, who famously said that “Russia is not sulking; she is composing herself.” Russia knows that the clock is ticking for achieving its maximum goals before Trump likely orders Western/NATO peacekeepers to enter Ukraine. The Kremlin is quiet for now precisely because policymakers have yet to decide what to do.
